Hi friends,

Greetings from Austin!

The draft of the Porter Robinson documentary I’ve been working on for the past year is finally complete. To put the finishing touches on it, I just teamed up with a musician who is going to make an original mix for the introduction, and I now think it’ll premiere in late May.

The whole thing builds upon the Imitate, then Innovate framework I outlined in this essay and the core question is: Where does creative inspiration come from?

Here’s what I want to share this week:

1. Write of Passage Podcast: This podcast is the fastest way to learn the writing method I teach in Write of Passage. Every episode is 4-8 minutes and there’s absolutely no fluff. (Listen here: iTunes | Spotify | Overcast)
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2. Building a Second Brain Podcast: The Write of Passage podcast was inspired by a podcast I recorded with Tiago Forte about his Building a Second Brain system. His class is the best online course I've ever taken and it's open for enrollment right now. If you're interested, he's hosting a Q&A about it this week. ​
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3. Hugging the X-Axis: Our society has a commitment problem, and quite frankly, so did I. We love to celebrate youth and first dates but forget to celebrate the wisdom that comes with age and the depths of love that emerge out of long marriages. In this essay and now, this YouTube video, I present some language for thinking about the benefits of commitment.

Coolest Things I Learned This Week

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Everybody knows this triangle and people talk about it like it’s some sort of god-given truth about human nature. When they do, they imply that you can’t ascend to higher levels of meaning and spirituality until you have all your lower ones met.

The issue is that Maslow refuted his own theory.

In his initial paper from 1943, he argued that people must satisfy their lower level needs before moving up to higher ones. But later in his career, he said that the hierarchy isn’t an “all-or-none” phenomenon. He critiqued his own framework because it gave the false impression that you need to 100% satisfy one need before you can move onto the next one.

Source: Simply Psychology​

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Why the Theory is Popular

Maslow’s hierarchy fits snuggly into our culture of materialism because the idea that you need to have a bunch of things before you can self-actualize is an easy way to get people to swipe their credit cards more often.

But 44 years after publishing his original theory, Maslow said that the hierarchy “is not nearly as rigid” as his earlier description implied. In fact, he said that the order of needs is flexible and depends on external circumstances and individual differences. Think of the struggling artist whose need for creative stimulation is more important than just about all their basic material needs.

Maybe that’s why Nietzche wrote: “He who has a why to live for can endure any how.”

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A Culture of Spiritual Emptiness

The hierarchy implies that self-actualization can only be achieved by the rich, but a quick glance at society will show that’s not necessarily true.

David Foster Wallace was one of the most perceptive observers of wealthy Americans, who are some of the most materialistically wealthy people in the history of humanity. One of the core themes of his work is the spiritual emptiness that haunts so many of them. Speaking in one interview, he said: "Most of my friends, they’re extremely bright, privileged, well-educated Americans who are sad on some level.”

In fact, a 2006 study found that North American women, the most affluent members of the study, were most likely to be depressed.

Sebastian Junger refutes Maslow’s hierarchy in his book Tribe. The core thesis of the book is that modern society has mastered the art of making people feel unnecessary. To show how humans often thrive on some kinds of hardships, he cites how people sometimes remember disasters more fondly than weddings.

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Depth at the Bottom of the Hierarchy

In accordance with Maslow’s hierarchy, many people want to abolish a Liberal Arts education so students can study more useful subjects instead. They argue that Shakespeare and Dostoevsky should wait until people are debt-free and making $100,000 per year. Though we pay lip service to the Liberal Arts, it’s been stained by the need to justify all our learning with an ROI calculator.

I assert that we can plumb the depths of meaning long before we have a life of luxury. Historically, the Jews and the Russians have two of the deepest literary traditions out there because they’ve experienced so much strife and turmoil. Their history reminds us that we can cultivate meaning long before we feel perfectly comfortable.

Jews and Christians would say this is why God commands us to keep the Sabbath. One day a week, we are commanded to embrace the things that give us life — no matter where we stand on Maslow’s hierarchy. What awakens the spirit comes alive in rest, which is why the Sabbath is a time to renew the soul and discover who we are.

Though there are elements of truth to Maslow’s hierarchy, rid yourself of the idea that you need to stand on top of it before you can cultivate the depth that makes life worth living.

Photo of the Week

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There are two ways to write: The Printer Method and the Pixel Method.

Most of the time, when people get stuck, they’re trying to write with the Printer Method. They write in the same way the printer creates an image — line-by-line, where you don’t go on to the next one until the previous one is perfect. For example, people won’t move on to the body of their article until the introduction is perfect.

The alternative is the Pixel Method. It’s like those old websites where the entire image would load as a blurry image before it’d become clear later on. This is generally a better way to write because you can quickly get your whole idea on the page. Once it’s all there, you can refine your blurry ideas by rewriting them until they become clear.